WRC PREVIEW
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Nearlyhalfwayintothe2011world
championship and Citroen have
marginally gained the upper
hand, with four victories against one
for their rivals Ford, but the fight is still
close. The next event is this week’s Rally
Argentina. It is two years since the WRC
has been to South America, although
this is the thirtieth time the world rally
championship in one guise or another has
been to Argentina, and the 27th time the
event takes place in Cordoba province.
This is very much the heartland of
Argentine rallying, the area where the
majority of drivers and teams are based even
though national rallying itself extends over
a wide part of the country. The territory is
familiar to all the visitors. Stages are basically
hard-packed sand, at quite high elevation,
extending up to 2000 metres, stretching in
all directions away from the lakeside resort
headquarters town of Villa Carlos Paz.
Themainnoveltyaboutthisyear’sSouth
American round of the series is that the
organisers have gone ‘mixed’, embracing
the FIA’s new preference for variety of event
style. There are two stage locations with a
significant mixed content.
One is the downhill El Condor stage, in
the hills to the west of Villa Carlos Paz, in
which over half of the traditionally rough
37km gravel stage will now be run on newly-
prepared asphalt surface. This has given
teams worries about brake efficiencies. As
this is a mostly gravel stage event, small
15inch wheels are fitted, with smaller
diameter 300mm brake discs inside. The El
Condor stage is run twice on the first full day.
The southern stage loop to be run on Day
2 features a new stage, due south, not far
from Villa Carlos Paz. This Las Jarillas stage
starts on a gravel road then turns on to a
mountainous stretch of main road which is
asphalt.
Teams hope the organisers will give
permission for a tyre change so that
the group of three gravel stages further
south can be tackled on each loop on
fresh gravel tyres. Photographers will be
sad that the section of special stage past
the remarkable rocks at the end of the
preceding and easily-accessible Guilio
Cesare stage have been sacrificed in order
to provide the asphalt content to the El
Condor stage.
There are two other novelties in the
route. Two famous stages to the north
have been merged to make one section
of 48.21km – but do not get too excited.
On the 1984 event, the first year the WRC
went to the Cordoba province, the same
roads and more were used (in the opposite
direction) to run a stage of 62.62km! This is
used once, on Day 3.
And then there is a brand new
superspecial venue. This is located at the
north-east end of Villa Carlos Paz close to
the road in from Cordoba, with a classic
side-by-side, figure-of-eight design. This
design is remarkably similar in layout to
the Pro Racing superspecial course which
was laid out 12 years earlier the other side
of the Cordoba highway. It will be used in
late afternoon on the Thursday evening
and then as the penultimate stage of Day
3, just before the Power Stage.
The Power Stage is to be run just after
midday, as usual in reverse seeded order
for the top cars. On three occasions
(before the Superspecial, before the Power
Stage and then before the Podium) on
the short final day of four stages there are
different running order regulations!
Seventyentrieswerereceivedforthis
event, split into two divisions. The full
WRC event has attracted 52 entries.
The other 18 entries are for a parallel
event called the ACA Cup which caters
for nationally or regionally homologated
cars. Neither event qualifies for either the
FIA’s now shortened regional Codasur
series or the 10-round national ‘Rally
Argentino’ championship. Although these
events are individually much shorter,
regular participation in these series is very
demanding in commitment.
Furthermore the technical rules for
cars in the national series do not entirely
follow the FIA rules. The ACA Cup event
is specially relevant to the new Maxi Rally
cars, cars based on Super 2000 design
principles but with single supplier engines
as well as transmissions. These cars are not
homologated by the FIA for world-wide use.
Of the six importers who have allowed their
cars to be modified for this formula, three
of them (Chevrolet, Ford and VW) have cars
taking part on the ACA event. This separate
event also provides for the Group N based
cars which have been specially modified,
often featuring special locally-fabricated
body parts. It is planned that the ACA Cup
cars will run after the WRC competitors for
the full length of the rally.
Maxi Rally cars have recently
dominated rally sport in Argentina.
At the curiously named Oil and
Dinosaurs Rally at Neuquen, round 3 of the
series, these cars took six of the top seven
places. The 42 year-old WRC driver Federico
Villagra (Ford Fiesta) beat the 23 year-old
Academy driver Miguel Baldoni (VW Gol
Trend) by 11 seconds with Mitsubishi driver
Juan Marchetto more than a minute behind
the winner.
But these special cars have helped
further alienate the national from
international sport in the country. The
only top Argentine driver we will see on
the WRC event is Villagra. In the ACA Cup
we will also see Marcos Ligato and the
Argentino championship leader Marchetto
but nothing of successful drivers such
as Gabriel Pozzo, Claudio Menzi or Raul
Martinez ... The impressive aspect, however,
is this situation makes Rally Argentina a
massively international event!
Citroen take only four cars to
Argentina (they are to run six cars in
the following event, in Greece), and
are planning a special ‘road show ’ in the
streets of Buenos Aires on the Saturday
before the event.
Citroen Total team start the event 17
points ahead of the Ford Abu Dhabi team.
Of the registered teams, Ice Man (Kimi
Raikkonen) has elected not to contest this
event but Brazil’s WRT (Daniel Oliveira) once
again has entered a World Rally Car version
of the Mini John Cooper Works. Of the
non-championship WRC drivers, Henning
Solberg has announced his withdrawal
from this event on financial grounds. There
will therefore be 11 World Rally Cars.
The secondary championship series
here will be the PCWRC. This is only the
third round of the series: some contenders
(like the series leader Martin Semerad)
have already competed twice, others (like
Hayden Paddon) only once. Ten of the 19
registered contenders, will be present, but
there will be no Guest drivers, for reasons
already explained. Patrik Flodin, struggling
with only one point from two events,
comes to Argentina with a changed co-
driver, reverting to former co-driver Maria
Andersson.
Even if some of their best drivers will
unfortunately be staying at home,
there will be a lot to watch out
for in Argentina this year. Not the least
are the organisers’ continued efforts to
expand events to embrace some of its
neighbouring Codasur countries. Listen
out for rumours of stages in neighbouring
countries, maybe ceremonial starts in
others.
Ceremonial starts all round the countries
in the Codasur region? Now there is
a familiar thought. Monte Carlo-style
concentration runs from neighbouring
capital cities was how the original
Argentine world championship rally was
organised, in 1980.
And how is it that the FIA is so involved
in trying to revert to tradition on this
event? Look at the results of the 1979
Codasur Rally, Argentina’s multi-national
cross-border pre-championship trial
event. The winning co-driver back then, is
today’s ruling President of the FIA. There is
nothing new under the sun in this business,
particularly in South America.